Nevada Supreme Court ruling blows $62 million hole in state budget

May 26, 2011

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A Nevada Supreme Court ruling blew a $62 million hole in the state budget on Thursday and sent lawmakers and Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office scrambling to determine if other funding mechanisms in Sandoval’s proposed budget might be in jeopardy.

Assembly Speaker John Oceguera, D-Las Vegas, and Sen. Steven Horsford, D-Las Vegas, emerged from a closed-door meeting with Sandoval chief of staff Heidi Gansert to say that legal staff from Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto’s office, the Governor’s office and the legislature are meeting to discuss the ramifications of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

The court ruled Thursday morning that the decision by the legislature to take $62 million from the Clark County Clean Water Coalition during the 2010 Special Session to help fill an $805 million budget hole.

Sandoval has included those funds in his proposed 2012-2013 budget as well.In a unanimous decision written by Justice James Hardesty, the court said the legislature did not have the legal right to sweep those funds.

“We recognize that the Legislature is endowed with considerable lawmaker authority under ... the Nevada Constitution,” the opinion said. “But that authority is not without some restraints.”

The Nevada Constitution “prohibits, among other things, local and special laws for the ‘assessment and collection of taxes for state purposes,” the opinion said.Sandoval’s $6.1 billion budget also includes taking a portion of property taxes from Clark and Washoe counties, using school bond construction debt reserves for operating costs, and other funding mechanisms that could apply, depending upon how broadly the Supreme Court ruling is interpreted.

Oceguera and Horsford said that is part of the discussion of the various legal staffs. He said another meeting with leadership and the governor’s office will be held after the legal staffs make their reviews.